Since the early 2000s I have dedicated much of my work to human rights violations and responses to them. I am especially interested in the collective representation and memory of mass violence, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  I introduced a new class into the curriculum, entitled Crime and Human Right, and authored a related book with the same title for classroom use (Sage 2010). Together with Ryan D. King, I wrote a book on American Memories: Atrocities and the Law (ASA Rose Monograph Series, Russell Sage Foundation 2011), based on several smaller projects conducted in collaboration with students. The National Science Foundation supported research on collective representations of the Darfur conflict, which resulted in my most recent book, entitled Representing Mass Violence: Conflicting Responses to Human Rights Violations in Darfur (University of California Press 2015). Related articles, co-authored with former and current Ph.D. advisees Ryan King, Suzy McElrath, and Hollie Nyseth Brehm appeared  in outlets such as the American Journal of Sociology (2005, 2015) and Annual Review of Law and Social Sciences (2007, 2015).

Darfur

American Memories

Crime and Human Rights